Abstraction
by Sora with an S
Summary: Game rules are abstractions, things to make gameplay simple... so why am I living my life by the rules of a game I have never played? Inspired by "Dungeon Crawling in Chicago"
1. Character Creation

Have you ever woken up and not known where you are?

Usually, a quick glance around, a moment to shrug off the drowsiness, and it all comes back to you. Here? Not so much. For one, I was lying on the ground in some dark room I didn't recognise. And when I say dark, I mean I couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

More than slightly creeped out (I sleep in my underwear, so being in a strange room was even weirder then it would be otherwise) I groped in the dark for the wall, looking for a light switch.

Upon touching some kind of flat surface in the dark, it lit up with the words "Select your game." With a start, I realised that though the (screen?) was lit up, I still couldn't see anything else in the room.

Which should be impossible. Wouldn't the light from the screen be enough to see by?

Still creeped out, I thought aloud "Game? What kind of game?" The sound of my own voice in the darkness helped to sooth my nerves. "You mean like D&amp;D or something?"

As I finished talking, the text vanished, shortly replaced by the stylised text "Dungeons and Dragons" that I had seen once on a book my friend owned. It even had the "Wizards of the Coast" logo floating above it.

I blinked in surprise, now really nervous. What was happening here didn't make any sense. What were the odds this thing was set up to react to those exact words?

"Select edition" replaced the game iconography. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, 4th and 5th were my options.

Quick confession: I have never played D&amp;D. Ever. Any edition. I only said it out loud because one of my friends has been playing recently. So I had no idea which would be the 'best' and just went for the middle one, touching 3.5.

It asked me to pick my 'Ability Scores', which were similar enough to Fallout's 'S.P.E.C.I.A.L.' System that I felt reasonably comfortable. Pity I didn't say Fallout when asked for a game, I rock that FPS. Anyway, I went for 14, 13, 13, 16, 12, and 10 as my scores. (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma respectively. Just so you know, 10 is base human average.)

"Select class" followed after. A _really_ long list, with well over a hundred items appeared below, spread out over several columns.

….

What, was I supposed to pick the class that represented me the most? The class I aspired to be? Was this some really strange invitation to a game session? I had no idea which classes were good ideas, or bad ones. I made a small noise of frustration. I didn't want to be the healer, dang it!

Skimming the list, I saw "Monk" listed. Good, if they were what I thought they were, then Monk should be simple, straightforward and offensive, just beating up the guy you didn't like. I touched Monk.

The screen changed to "Select Race". This was a no-brainer, I touched "Human" as soon as I spotted it. "Template(s)?" Replaced the previous text. Considering that things like "Ghost" and "Half-Dragon" were on this list, I didn't think that mucking around with it was a good idea… but I saw "Lycanthrope", and hey, werewolves are cool, right?

"Select Feats" appeared.

I didn't even know what a feat _was_. Were they like Fallout Perks? "Is there a tutorial I can access?" I asked the screen hopefully, to no avail. "Difficulty slider?" Still no change. "Options menu?"

This time the screen dimmed, and brighter text was superimposed over the top. Ugh, there were a ton of on/off switches here, for options whose function I was limited to guessing. What the heck did "Spontaneous Divine Spellcasters" mean? Did that mean that spontaneously there would appear spellcasters who were simply divine? I switched that one on out of curiosity.

"Spell point system" and "Recharge magic" were left alone, as I really had no idea what they did.

"Gestalt" looked promising. That meant… multiple things working together, right? Some help would be very welcome here. I switched that on.

Ugh, still lots of options left. Skim, skim, skim… There was an entire section called 'transparency', with sub-options like "Magic-Psionics", "Magic-Incarnum", and so on. Transparency would imply they would go through each-other, which I didn't want. So I turned the entire 'Transparency' section off.

Okay, um… "Bloodline"? I looked closer, and it listed sub-options like "Major Gold dragon", "Minor Troll" and such. I exhaled. "What's recommended?" I wondered, and to my surprise the screen underlined the "Intermediate Fire Elemental" bloodline. Shocked that the screen was being helpful, I chose as it had suggested.

Back to the main options menu, I asked "Anything else I should change?" The screen underlined "Fractional BAB" and "Multiclassing XP penalty", so I switched the former on and the latter off. Satisfied with my choices, I went back to the feat selection menu.

Once more, I cheerfully asked "Okay, what do you recommend?"

The screen what not as useful this time. For one thing, it underlined dozens of the hundreds of feats I could choose from. For another, it had also opened up another menu underneath the first one labelled "Flaws", and underlined three of them. What the heck were flaws?

I glanced though the feats suggested to me. There was still an awful lot – "Kung Fu Genius"? That sounded helpful for a Monk. I guess that's why the screen suggested it. I picked that one.

Ugh…. Still so many to choose from. At this point I just wanted to finish whatever this was meant for and go back to where things made sense. I closed my eyes and picked a feat at random. Opening my eyes back up, I saw that I had picked "Darkstalker", which wasn't ominous at all. In response, the Feat menu had gone dim, but hadn't disappeared. The flaw menu was still there…

"Forget it." I said. "Just pick what you think is good already and turn the lights back on."

"Honourable Challenge" and "Vulnerable" flashed, then the flaw menu vanished, the feat menu fully lit once more. "Sacred Vow" flashed, then "Vow of Poverty". The menu name "Feats" changed to "Bonus Feats" and the options dropped from hundreds to a couple dozen. The screen picked "Nymph's Kiss" and "Monastic Training".

Speeding up, as though the menu was looking forward to finishing as much as I was, the screen picked Rogue as my second class (Wait, what? Why do I have a second class?) before assigning Skill Points, which once again looked pretty similar to Fallout's system.

With a whirring sound and a blink of surprise from me, the screen… apparently printed my character sheet. I grabbed the paper, noted that it appeared to be laminated and that like the screen, I could read it in the pitch-black room. I tucked it under one arm.

"Begin game?" The screen asked.


	2. Random Encounter

I blinked, and the room was gone. Instead, there was a library, with a shortish man standing about a metre away. And this is literally all the information I was able to observe before he pulled a knife on me.

What happened next? Well… have you ever watched the Matrix? Remember that scene where Neo gets a cassette tape installed in his head, and he suddenly exclaims "I know Kung-Fu?!" A little like that. I suddenly found myself adjusting my posture. I straightened my back, moved my feet further apart to get a firmer stance, and raised my first into a ready position. I didn't think about it, I just did it when I saw the edge of his knife.

The thing is, I did this so quickly, I didn't have time to think about what I was doing. Almost imminently after, I slumped: the realisation that I was about to seriously fight someone running through my brain. My 'opponent' seemed almost as surprised as I was (the realisation he was fighting a girl in her underwear might have had something to do with that), so I took the advantage and legged it, running around him.

His reactions weren't as dull as I'd hoped, 'cause as I was leaving the range of his knife he brought it round in a wild strike, catching me across the back. That _really_ hurt. The corners of my vision turned black, but a surge of adrenalin reminded me that I _really_ didn't want to wait around for another hit. Blinking back tears of pain, I continued to run.

Problem was, there was a _second_ person in the room whose presence I had failed to notice till now. Noticing me heading for the door, she waved her hands in some wield way and a solid wall of ice filled the doorway. Skidding to a halt, I whirred around wildly. Knife-guy, still turning around. Weird runic-looking circle where I had first appeared. Window. _Window!_

Internally thanking God that the window was on the other side of the room from knife-guy, I put foot to the floor and _bounded_. Behind me, I heard ice-lady yell a phrase my limited knowledge of magic placed as the verbal component of a _Celerity_ spell, which let the caster muck around with time to perform an action very quickly, effectively taking their turn early. (Wait, when did I learn about _magic?!)_

She used this extra time to cast another spell, one whose verbal component I didn't recognise. I felt a surge of humour bubble up within me, and I almost fell down laughing. The pain in my back helped me clamp down on _that_ impulse. 2 meters, 1… it was a nice large window, so jumping though it was easy. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a second-story window. The same fighting instincts that adjusted my posture inside caused me to tuck my head into my knees, effectively curling into a ball.

Hitting the ground still _hurt_, but somehow I remained conscious though the haze of agony I was in. Standing to my feet, I almost lost my balance and lurched to one side. Good thing too: knife-guy had gotten his bearings and hurled his knife at me, only missing due to my sudden tilting. Somehow, I found the strength to run out of the alleyway I'd fallen into, blood running down from the cut across my back.

I was in serious luck. The alleyway led onto a main road, and there were plenty of pedestrians around. Near-naked lady covered in her own blood ought to … attract ….

At this point, the relief caused me to release my iron grip on my will, and I succumbed to the pain.

When I came to, I was handcuffed to a chair on one side of an interview table, the kind you might have seen in cop shows. I was wearing a plain grey T-shirt and pants, and my back didn't hurt at all; both very good things. The handcuffs were worrying, though. Had I unknowingly done something wrong?

There was a document lying face-down on the table before me. Flipping it over revealed that it was my character sheet from the dark room that started this mess, to my surprise. In one corner in bright red ink was "+4080 XP". What, just from running away? Was 4000XP a lot? Apparently, because the words "Level up" were written in blue ink at the top of the sheet. If I levelled up just from running away from those guys, how powerful were they?!

Before I could take a closer look at my sheet, the door to the surprisingly well-lit room opened and a police officer entered. I straightened in my chair, noting that his uniform didn't look like the Western Australia uniform I was expecting.

"Right, miss." He opened without preamble. "Name."

"Uh..." I took a second to collect myself. "Charlotte Murray."

The officer made a note on his clipboard. "Ms Murray, why were you admitted to the San Francisco General Hospital with a laceration to your back and traces of Conjuration magic in your system?"

I blinked. The San Francisco hospital? That would explain the American accent. Wait… "You know about magic?" I asked. Heck, _I_ didn't know about magic: not really. This game I had unwittingly agreed to was doing weird things, this entire world might just be some virtual environment.

"This is the Dweomer Investigation Department, so yes. Answer my question please."

I told him as much detail as I could remember about what had happened, starting after I pressed the "Begin Game" screen. He paid close attention when I mentioned the ice-lady using magic and when I mentioned the circle on the floor, actually looking up from his notes.

After I finished speaking, he started. "There is no registered spellcaster living in the street you were found on." He held up his hand to forestall my objections. "Tomorrow morning, we shall be conducting raids looking for traces of unauthorised magic use. You shall accompany our teams and confirm the house you escaped."

"Don't you have to ask me first?" I protested out of reflex.

The cop stared at me. "Miss, in all likelihood you were summoned into this countries boarders unwillingly." I blinked again, was that what had happened? "However, in the eyes of the law, you are still an illegal immigrant. Compliance is the easiest way to avoid prosecution."

He didn't need to put it like _that_. I sighed. I'd try to read my character sheet in bed. Hopefully I'd have a better idea on my abilities by the time the raid came.


	3. 8 Hour Rest

That night, I had a good long stare at my character sheet. It made little sense to me, mostly because I didn't know how the numbers stacked up. Was an Armour Class of 22 good? One good thing is that my sheet listed brief explanations on what my feats did. I was right, they are like Fallout's Perks.

Darkstalker let me sneak even around creatures that would normally auto-sense me, like a dog might do with scent. I checked, the screen had given me skill points in 'Hide' and 'Move Silently', so stealth was a tactical option for me. I'd need to remember to get my Ninja on tomorrow.

Kung Fu Genius simply let me use my intelligence to power my monk abilities, rather than wisdom. As my INT had somehow ended up as 20 and my WIS as 12, this was really for the best.

Sacred Vow and Monastic Training (my Monk bonus feat) were both feats used as prerequisites for other feats. Sacred Vow was needed for Vow of Poverty, Monastic Training for a feat I hadn't yet taken.

Vow of Poverty was an amazingly powerful feat, with an appallingly huge drawback. It gave me "Exalted armour", bonus "Exalted" feats, and a laundry list of other benefits that would be unlocked as I levelled up. However, I had to live in poverty for the rest of my life, and in particular I could never use magic items.

I stared long and hard at that feat, before shaking my head. I'd worry about that later.

My last feat, "Nymph's Kiss", gave me an extra skill point per level, as well as a +1 on my 'saving throw' against spells, and a +2 bonus on Charisma-related checks. It also made it a rule that I was in an "Intimate relationship with a good-aligned fey".

That one I'd worry about now. Did my character have a Leprechaun boyfriend somewhere? I'd been given Martial instincts to fit being a Monk, but couldn't actually remember training. Would this feat work the same way?

Fretting, I got up and paced around in the tiny room the D.I.D. had given me to sleep in. Now that I wasn't running on adrenalin, the whole "I've apparently been sucked into a game world, or at least the US of A" situation was calling in its long-due freak-out.

I pinched myself. Nope, this is really happening… wait. I blinked. My skin felt weird.

My room had a small sink and, more importantly, a mirror. I stood in front of the sink, and noted that I had to bend down to see my face in the mirror.

I stared into my… fire red eyes? Huh? My eyes were supposed to be brown. Mentally zooming out, I relaxed a little when I saw the rest of my face looked like it was supposed to. A little more flushed, but otherwise the face I'd been born with.

Standing back a little, I examined myself as a whole. I looked… lankier. Wait a second… grabbing my Character Sheet, I looked up the top where it listed my height.

6' 3''?! The heck?! I was 5' 2'' before! Why had I put on 13 inches?! No wonder I was having trouble looking in the mirror! Looking up, a nearby entry caught my eye. My species was listed as "Spellwarped Human (Intermediate Fire Elemental)".

I had picked Human. With the screen's help, I had picked the Fire Elemental bloodline (which was probably where my red eyes came from). But what the heck was with this Spellwarped thing! The only other race-related option I had picked was Lycanthrope!

I squinted. Come to think of it, I couldn't see Lycanthrope on this sheet.

Oh.

The dark room with the screen had been, well, dark. I hadn't been able to see my hands. Had I accidentally picked "Spellwarped" instead of Lycanthrope?

…

When my schedule permitted, I was going to hunt down every 3.5 book I could find and read them! Not knowing how these rules worked and what my options did was infuriating.

Getting into my small bed, I carefully thought about my frustrations at the situation; so that I went to bed furious, not crying myself to sleep.

The next morning bright and early we left for the building I had run from the previous day. Not gonna lie: wasn't looking forward to that. But that circle on the floor was most likely how I came to be in that building, ignoring the whole 'game' setup. Even if I couldn't go home through it, they might be using it to pull other people to them, which I wasn't going to let happen.

Sneaking back into my 'entrance point' wasn't difficult. The copper with me simply opened the door using a hook on a fifteen-foot pole. Incidentally, it was the same officer who interviewed me last night. Was the D.I.D. understaffed? Anyway, with the _Fireball_ trap on the door set off from a distance, we walked right in. I was confidant. I had a plan. I was sure that I was operating at full potential.

And as I walked into the building, I remembered that I'd forgotten to level up last night.


	4. Trapfinding

Walking confidently into the room ahead of the Officer turned out to be a bit of a blunder, as I tripped the pit trap behind the door immediately. My increased height saved my life here; without it, I would have never been able to grab the two sides of the pit to avoid falling in. This feat of gymnastics ended up with me facing straight down, which gave me the rather unpleasant view of how far down I would fall. Not to mention the sharp-looking metal spikes at the bottom.

Without another word, the officer stepped around the pit, grabbed my arm firmly, and pulled me to safety. Shaking slightly, I got up to thank him but he was already tampering with the next door. I shook myself. I was a fully-fledged PC now! A simple dungeon crawl should be nothing to me!

A rather unhelpful internal voice reminded me of all the times my characters have died in dungeon crawlers.

Looking toward the door, currently emitting a toxic-looking gas as my escort poked it with his pole, I tried to reassure myself. It would be just like Sword Art Online!

I had always hated Sword Art Online.

The next few rooms proceeded like that. The hallway had hidden blades that descended from above, the stairway rotated in such a way as to slam you into the ceiling, and the second story entrance room had strange glyphs carved into the walls. At each trap the officer would neutralise it in some way, and I would stand around being basically useless. Did I even deserve XP for this?

Four traps later, we had made it to the room I had initially appeared in. The same "Fullmetal Alchemist" looking circle I had appeared in was, now that I could examine it closely, carved into the floorboards.

"This the room?" The officer asked gruffly. I nodded. He walked over to the circle and ran a finger over its edge. "Looks like an extra-planar sink-hole. Anything passing through the astral nearby gets pulled in." He moved his pole around so that its hook was in-between two of the floorboards the circle was carved into, and pulled. With a grunt of effort, he pulled one such floorboard up, nails and all, destroying the circle.

"That should stop any more incidents." He grunted. Straightening, he looked at the three doors leading out of the room. "Stay here and don't cause trouble." He ordered.

I blinked, and before I could respond he had already exited the room, presumably to search the rest of the building. I scowled. Surely I wasn't completely useless? Besides, what did he expect me to do while he was gone?

Well, come to think of it, this was a library…

I walked to the sides of the shelves, looking for labels. G… Titles such as "Game theory" and "Galactic Civilisations: Strategy Guide" made up the shelves. On a hunch, I looked up 'D'.

There, in glorious hardcover, was the 3.5 edition Dungeons and Dragons "Players Handbook". Smirking, I grabbed the title, opened to 'combat mechanics', and started reading.

Turns out, D&amp;D really isn't a game you can play by yourself. At minimum, you need a player and one 'Dungeon Master', who is kind of a cross between a storyteller and a referee. Unlike a video game, in D&amp;D you can try anything you can think of, and it's up to the DM to decide what happens when the rules don't cover a situation. But my game didn't have a DM, as far as I knew…

Hmmm… that screen had been pretty intelligent after I asked the right questions…

Unfortunately, the Players Handbook was a 'Bare Bones' sort of book, covering the basics. Half the stuff on my character sheet wasn't in here, I'd need to read other 3.5 books. Just my luck this library only had this one.

Halfway through the 'Magic Spells' chapter, I heard a light buzzing, like dragonfly wings, right behind me. Once again, my body straightened almost involuntarily, rolling to the left just as the buzzing passed through the space I just vacated. Having read the Players Handbook, I now had a name to go with this sensation.

Roll Initiative.

I tried to spot the source of the buzzing, but I couldn't see a thing. The sound was coming from my right though, so I swept my fist though the area. Missed. The buzzing dashed forwards again, and this time I didn't dodge in time. I felt a small stabbing pain near my right abdomen.

I was definitely under attack, apparently by an invisible creature. The pain wasn't bad, but I had no desire to experience the Death of a Thousand Cuts firsthand. I swept my leg though the area I thought to be occupied. Missed again. On the bright side, so did my attacker.

Was there some way to boost my accuracy? Not really, my only accuracy-related ability, Flurry of Blows, made me less accurate, not more. Tiring to mix things up, I bodily charged though the enemy space. Nothing, my ears telling me the enemy moved before I did. This was getting ridiculous. Another stab to my shoulder.

Moving back a step, I listened furiously for my opponents distinctive buzzing. Hearing it move forward, I swung my fist to meet it.

Hit.

There was a sickening _crunch_ sound as formerly invisible blood splattered over my knuckles.

Blink. Blink-blink.

Why was there a small person with wings lying on the floor there? Was she bleeding? Why was she bleeding?

A couple more precious seconds passed as I stared dumbly at the 2 foot battered body.

All of a sudden, I found myself moving frantically, ripping strips off my shirt and tying them around the bleeding areas as best I could identify them. Dang, dang, dang… I'd almost certainly broken bones, and lots of them. She was still breathing, which was small comfort given the amount she was bleeding by. And she might have hit her head, or have internal bleeding, or any number of things!

Now I wish I had played a Healer class!

Wait. Didn't I have a level up waiting to be completed? I scrambled around for my character sheet, pulling it out of my pocket, and tapping the 'Level up' text as soon as I saw it.

The room went back to the pitch-black that had started this 'adventure'. Across a wall, familiar text appeared: "Choose class".

"Don't care!" I shouted. "Just make me a healing class, _quick_!"

Options scrolled across the screen so fast I couldn't see them and filled themselves in just as fast. All of a sudden, the text changed to "Remaining level ups possible. Continue to level up?"

"No!" I yelled at the screen. "I need to heal that girl. Now!"

The room lit up again. Once more, I had a Matrix cassette tape moment. I linked my thumbs together, both hands palm down, and placed them on the injured Pixie girl.

"מרץ פחותים" I breathed in Hebrew. (No, I can't speak Hebrew. I just knew that's what the language was, alright?)

The girl let out a deep, shuddering breath, before breathing in again. Before my eyes her wounds were slowly, but surely, healing shut.

I rocked backwards, letting out a deep breath of my own. Right, I thought to myself. That was it. If there was a way to play D&amp;D on a pacifist run, I was going to find it and follow it religiously. Having actual blood on my hands made that decision _really_ easy.

The door opposite the one the Officer and I had entered though opened up, causing me to let out a surprised noise. Out came said Officer, his clothes smoking slightly.

"What have you got there?" He demanded gruffly.

"Uh… Pixie! I think… It attacked me, but then I healed it with magic! So it's fine now!" I babbled, flustered from the adrenaline still leaving my system.

"Did you now?" The officer asked. Without waiting for a reply, he pulled out a pistol from his belt and shot the Pixie square in the head.

My mouth fell open, and I felt distinctly like I had been kicked in the gut. I looked around the find the pistol now centred on _my _forehead.


	5. Stronghold

It is my most sincere wish that none of my readers have ever been held at gunpoint. If you have… you will know the bone numbing terror I felt. I had 18 Hit Points, 4 of which I had lost in the previous battle. So while I _might_ survive the first two gunshots, three if I was lucky, the forth would almost certainly kill me. At point-blank range, there was really no way to miss.

And of course, there was the simple fact that a pistol was nearly pressed against my forehead. My mindset wasn't _that_ into game stats yet.

"W-why?" I spluttered out. I hadn't done anything _wrong_, why was a police officer pointing a gun at me?

The officer's eyes grew frustrated tinged with exasperation, like he had to answer that question all the time.

With practised speed, he recited: "Due to the extremely varied nature of magic and the various ways its use can be masked, any person capable of Spellcasting is, by default, considered a criminal and enemy of the state." He refocused his eyes on me. "Anyone not born a government spellcaster is to be executed immediately, their death prioritised over all other activities."

Ah. Ah ah ah.

I glanced at the fey girl. Are the magical creatures dead by default as well?!

Wait.

"So, magic is uncontrollable so you're going to kill all the spellcasters?" I quickly said. That was going to be the start of a larger rant, anime-style, where I was going to point out what he was doing was wrong. Unfortunately, that tactic…

"Yep." Said the Cop simply, and fired his pistol.

…doesn't work so well when the guy had no doubts about the righteousness of his cause.

My field of view had gone dark. Was it because I was dead and darkness was what awaited the newly deceased? No, wait, hang on, I'd just closed my eyes on reflex.

I opened them to find the bullet crumpled up against a faintly glowing transparent gold pane floating in front of my eyeballs. Similar panes glowed nearby to the one that had saved me, tightly wrapped around my body before quickly fading from sight.

What?

My mind raced with questions as quick as it could think them up. Had the officer magically "pulled his punch"? Had someone stepped in to save me? Those panes had this, this radiance about them that reminded me of a quiet funeral service, or a particularly rousing sermon. More than that, they felt like they were _mine_ on some fundamental level.

Was this… my "Exalted armour"? To be honest, this was really shocking. My martial instincts, my new lanky appearance, even the healing spell I'd just pulled off… none of them didn't seem as real as this pseudo forcefield that had just saved me from a bullet between the eyes. This, to me, was the first real _proof_ that this laminated sheet of paper had power over me.

It was exciting of course, I mean who didn't want superpowers as a kid? But it was terrifying at the same time, because _someone had just shot at me_. Ice wall? Throwing knifes? Straight out of fantasy, easy to say they couldn't have really happened. Gunshots? Those were _real_.

I looked into the officer's eyes. To my discomfort, they showed annoyance and nothing else. He moved his trigger finger forwards, ready to fire again.

Almost lazily, the thought occurred to me that I saw large gaps between the exalted armour plates, and that the officer must have seen them as well.

Adrenalin suddenly surged into my blood, and I kicked out with my legs so forcefully it looked like I'd just spasmed. With that, my body shot upwards.

BANG.

I couldn't feel any pain, so that probably meant that he'd missed. At least, that's what I would have thought if I could think of more than "Run, hide, ESCAPE". Unlike the first time I'd escaped from this room, I was in one of the smaller rows between the bookshelves, rather than the large corridor down the centre of the room. As the officer was at one end of the row, I was forced to run in the other direction. This led away from the window but towards the door we'd entered though.

Some of the more headstrong members of the audience might be wondering if I was going to run from every fight. The answer to that was a definite yes so long as I was fighting guys who massively outclassed me. My brain was locked in fight-or-flight, and I didn't want to fight a man armed with a pistol barehanded – crazy Kung-Fu skills or no, pistols were designed to kill people. Hands weren't.

Back down the staircase – BANG. Agh! Painpainpainpain – BANG.

The second shot missed, I think. Regardless, it jolted me back into running, with me trying to ignore the intense, searing pain whenever I moved my left arm.

I did have one advantage – I was focused entirely on running, whereas the officer needed to aim his pistol. I was down the hallway before the officer had cleared the stairs. As I entered the entrance room, I saw the pit trap that had nearly gotten me on arrival. The part of my brain affected by my character sheet must have been more powerful than I thought, because I had a crazy idea. The hallway and the front door were at right angles in such a way that the pit wasn't actually visible from the hallway. So, with the officer thundering behind me, I deliberately jumped into the pit.

There were spikes at the bottom, which I'd seen when I'd nearly fallen in earlier. None hugged the walls, so I did; performing a little jump and a move that seemed to come from a new, gymnastics-oriented part of my instinct package. I got behind a spike and held my breath. The sound of the officer running came and went as he leaped over the pit and out the front door. He hadn't even looked down.

After a few seconds to make sure he wasn't doubling back, I let out a quiet sigh. I placed my hands on myself like I had done with the pixie just before, and breathed the same words. My arm started to feel better almost immediately.

"Ah, is that officer gone? Good, good."

The voice was so unexpected, and I was so tense, that I fainted dead away. My carrier as a hero was off to a _brilliant_ start.


	6. Turn Undead

I woke up in unfamiliar surroundings for the _third_ time in a row. Of course, this was easily the most unpleasant one of them all – there was a man standing over me with half his face _rotting_. One of his eyes was just goo in a socket, and most of his black hair had fallen out – which was unfortunate, because it let me see the bits of skull visible were his skin was missing. Flies settled on his face every so often, and he smelled _rancid._

Almost involuntarily, my arm pointed straight at him while I made a silent scream.

The sort-of-a-face frowned, apparently offended. The creature swatted away my hand, and I imminently cradled that hand to my chest. The thing had the body heat of a corpse to go with his appearance.

"I know I'm a Lich, girl, but I haven't been dead _that_ long. Honestly, show some manners." Somehow, despite his dread appearance, his voice was perfectly normal. That really didn't matter, though. I was still scared spitless.

"I do apologise for scaring you, though. I would have left this place alone with the others, but I built my phylactery into the foundations, you see." The undead man continued.

My fear was now slightly tinged with confusion, and I guess that must have shown on my face because the Lich rolled his one remaining eye.

"If you've read Harry Potter you might call it a Horcrux." He explained.

Oh. So in other words his soul was bound to an object hidden somewhere in this building, and that's why he was moving around despite being… you know... dead.

"Anyway, as I was saying, good work getting rid of the D.I.D officer. I would have killed him myself obviously, but the man had some serious anti-magic gear on him. Tricking him into leaving was the next best thing, really."

Despite my limited knowledge of undead, (in-game knowledge that is, I had no knowledge otherwise) I knew that becoming a Lich was an act of unspeakable evil that could only be self-inflicted. No matter how politely he talked, he was still as evil as they came. Which, because D&amp;D has rigid rules on what is and isn't evil, meant that I could be entirely confident he had absolutely no respect for life whatsoever. Still, he hadn't been threatening so far. I managed to find my voice.

"What if he comes back?"

"The officer? Girl are you joke – oh, that's right. You're new. This entire building has a powerful enchantment on it – 9th level, in fact. If you aren't marked properly, you'll never find this place, and even true seeing won't help you."

"So – so how did I…?" So how did _I_ find it, I tried to ask though my nerves.

"Oh, you got marked when we pulled you in. Wouldn't do to have the new blood grab a coffee and never find their way back, would it?" The Lich swatted my concerns away. He thought of me as a new recruit? A recruit for what?

He must have gotten tired of 20 Questions, because he stood up fully and clapped his hands. "Well, we best be starting your initiation now that the D.I.D. have lost the scent. All the other members ran to the other branches when you escaped – the scamps. Fortunately, the officer didn't mess around with anything other than our traps, right?"

"Um…" Came almost involuntarily out of my throat.

The Lich raised an almost-completely-gone eyebrow. "Right?" He drew out.

"Well," I started in a small voice. "He did kill a pixie, and I wasn't with him all the time…."

"What, the Pixie? Bah. Blasted thing was only useful as potion ingredients. Must have gotten loose from its cage at some point. But if he went off exploring on his own… he might have found the teleport circles. Or worse, the _stamps_." There was the remains of what might have been a beard at one point on the Lich's chin. They were just thin strands of white hair now, but he stroked them all the same.

"Right girl. You initiation test will be to go through the teleport circles and make sure my side projects are still running. If you don't come back, I'll assume no." I got up with great enthusiasm, eager to be away from the undead as soon as physically possible.

"Keep in mind" he continued "That your magic has you marked for death from the D.I.D., in case you were thinking of running back there."

I swore internally. I'd forgotten that. Now what? The only thing I knew about this group what that they let Liches in, they attacked to kill when surprised, and they hated the police. Not a group I felt like hanging around. But on the flip side my healing spells apparently now made my continued living illegal.

The Lich tapped a foot – fortunately, it was in a shoe, so I didn't have to see his rotting toes. I hurried out the door.

"The teleport hub is second door on the left." He called out after me. "Just so you know, my name is Aust Ungart. I'm your new boss. Welcome to the Underground."

I must have failed a Spellcraft check, because I didn't recognise the circular arcane markings on the floor beyond the obvious intellectual leap that these were the "Teleport Circles". Stepping into one was freaky because as soon as I did so, my surroundings instantly changed to a room so similar that I thought that the circle had just changed the lighting.

Then I noticed that the door was in a different wall. Okay. Right. I'd just been _teleported._ One more thing to geek out about later, when I was sure I wasn't in immediate danger.

Okay, so I had to check out something a Lich had been running as a side-project. Which was likely going to be something incredibly evil, incredibly dangerous, incredibly gross, or, most likely, all three.

Now I wished I was fully levelled up, I thought as I put my hand on my pocket. When my pocket made a crinkling noise, I blinked in surprise.

Reaching in, I pulled out my character sheet. Despite being folded over several times to fit in my pocket, it had no crinkles at all when I folded it out. Even freakier, I didn't remember putting it in there. The large blue text "Level up" was still there.

Slightly worried that my character sheet was stalking me, I tapped the "Level up" text. The familiar black room appeared around me.

"So, how many levels can I advance?" I asked. The screen displayed a simple "Three (3)".

What the utter unrepeatable. In D&amp;D, the fastest way to level up was to hang around people of a higher level than you. So how much higher level was those encounters that I'd had today that merely _surviving_ them got me _three_ level ups?!

"Okay" I thought out loud. "I have three levels, each of which I'm somehow taking two class levels on. So I have six levels worth of stuff I can grab. Okay, on one side, I'd like another three levels of Monk."

"Monk class selection illegal. Lawful alignment required." The screen responded simply.

There was much confused shouting on my part.

[At the time, all I could get was that I just couldn't take more levels in monk – I wouldn't fully understand what had just happened until I had another read of the Player's Handbook.

3.5 D&amp;D kept track of the morality of its players, i.e. whether they were Good, Evil or Neutral. But it also kept track of its player's _ethics_, whether they were Lawful, Chaotic or Neutral. That I couldn't continue down the tightly-regulated path of the Monk meant that in-between levels 2 and 3 I had lost a good chunk of my respect for the law. And… I could see why the screen thought that. I wouldn't be able to look at an officer in the foreseeable future without flinching.]

"Well, uh." I said, very articulate. "Um. What's a good all-round class?"

"Factotum, Binder, Lurk, Warmage…." The screen suggested. Well, factotum literally meant "make/do everything", so… I blinked. Since when can I speak Latin? I checked my character sheet. Under "Languages known", I had no less than six languages. Huh. Well then… "Three levels of Factotum, please."

Once that was slotted in, I had a quick think. I should probably try to cover for my weaknesses as much as I could. What was my greatest weakness? Probably my inability to use magic items. I asked the screen for help again, and it gave me a level in 'Incarnate', a class that can make and use 'Soulmelds'. It even printed out a brief little primer on what they were!

Soulmelds are basically items, but instead of being formed of matter, they were formed of soul-stuff. They were indestructible to all but really _specific_ magic, and could not be removed from my person. Even better, they weren't prohibited by my Vow of Poverty!

That said, I was still feeling out of my depth, so I asked the screen to choose which Soulmelds I'd be using. They were supposed to take an hour to shape, but the screen did it instantly. Not sure I liked the implications of that.

With two levels left, I put them in the basic melee class 'Fighter'. Next, feats. Given the _thousands_ of feats available, I just let the screen fill them in. I'd have to try and learn them myself eventually, but for now I was happy for the 'expert' to help me out.

One feat for reaching level 3, "Craven", which would let me do more Sneak Attack damage in exchange for making it harder for me to not be afraid. That had better be worth it. Two feats for two levels of fighter. The Screen picked "Dodge" and "Subduing Strike". Dodge would let me dodge more often, and Subduing Strike would let me avoid killing anyone else when attacking them a melee weapon.

One feat because of my Fire Bloodline. It would normally be Dodge, but because I already had it from Fighter it let me pick another feat in its place; the screen picked "Heroic Spirt", which apparently had opened up _another_ set of mechanics that I'd have to look up later. Lastly, I had another bonus feat from Vow of Poverty, which the screen picked to be "Vow of Peace" to go with the "Vow of Nonviolence" I'd apparently picked at second level. Oh. Was the game listening when I said I wanted to do a pacifist run? Well, I couldn't kill anyone anymore, but people now had to make will saves to be angry around me, and manufactured weapons now had to make fortitude saves to avoid shattering upon hitting me.

Oh wow. All those abilities were mine? Holy cow.

I let the screen finish up, then dropped back into the teleport room. My new Soulmelds were already in place, my blue Impulse Boots enclosing my feet all the way to my knees, and my Pauldrons Of Health forming around above my shoulders. With them I'd be harder to hit with surprise and sickening attacks respectively.

Feeling ready, I went to face whatever Ungart had waiting for me.


	7. External Element

I wasn't ready for what Ungart had waiting for me.

Oh, I was reasonably sure I could fight it and win (Sense Motive [Asses Opponent] told me so), and my Knowledge (Religion) check told me what it was pretty easily. The trouble was, so did my inner Otaku.

Locked up in a cage in the centre of the room was a Hollow. And no, that isn't a D&amp;D monster. It's from the Anime 'Bleach'.

The bejebers?

See, I thought I was in some sort of immersive game experience. You know, "You want to play D&amp;D? WE WILL PLAY D&amp;D SO HARD TABLES WILL CRY FOR GENERATIONS TO COME." But here was a piece of the puzzle that didn't fit. It wasn't from D&amp;D. It wasn't from the same _genre_ as D&amp;D. Heck, it wasn't even from the same _culture_ as D&amp;D. This was from somewhere else. Why was it here? Were there other 'players' somewhere, playing a completely different game?

The Hollow, a white monster with elongated limbs and a bone mask over its face, must have noticed me at that point, because it roared at me, griping the bars in such a way as to try and force its way out.

Wait, I thought you needed soul-powers to see Hollows? ...I guess my Soulmelds must have counted, because I could see the thing clear as day.

Ugh. Whatever it was doing here, I probably should kill it before Ungart figures out how to absorb its power or something. Making sure the bars weren't bending under the Hollows grip, I gave my Character Sheet a quick look over.

Hollows, being a sort of evil ghost, were Undead, so I didn't have to worry about 'killing' them. (Though they weren't what D&amp;D called ghosts though – I only watched a little Bleach, but it was established pretty early on that any idiot could just punch one and hurt it.) Destroying them was almost certainly a mercy to the tortured soul stuck inside.

My damage dealers were my unarmed strikes, and I probably had enough accuracy that Flurry of Blows would be beneficial. Craven would give me significant extra damage if, y'know, undead had internal organs to attack. That… was about all the strategizing I could do, depressingly enough. None of the remaining spells I had would help, and my other abilities were 'always on'.

Mentally bracing myself, I undid the lock, opened the cage door and Rolled Initiative.

The Hollow immediately went for my throat. Almost involuntarily, my front leg straightened, moving my neck back and up. The Hollow's claws scraped harmlessly on my Exalted Armour.

Going on the offensive, I Flurried. Flurry of Blows is supposed to represent a monk's ability to rapidly rain down attacks. Right now, it was letting me attack twice a round, or once every three seconds. That not sound like a lot? Try swinging your fist so hard it does the same damage as a short-sword. You have to put your whole body into it, and doing that every three seconds was tricky.

So I swung my mighty fist once – missed, like the dunce I am. Twice – managed to get it in its armpits. The Hollow tried to dodge that, but was out of position from avoiding my first strike.

In retaliation, the Hollow gave a mighty swing that clipped me in the side, smashing me into the open door of the cage, and suddenly I was struggling to stay upright. Not only had he knocked the wind out of me, but his touch _burned_. Did he have acid claws or something?

Gritting my teeth and holding an arm to my injured side, I aimed a kick to the monsters leg joint as he tried to move past me. The Hollow stepped back and avoided the blow. Tried again. Missed again.

The Hollow swung again, but I read the move and ducked in time. I think I lost some hair as his claws went sailing overhead.

With a sudden step forward, I swung up the elbow formerly holding my side into the Hollow's bone mask, snapping it back. I followed up with a cheap-shot punch to its exposed throat.

Rolling forwards, the Hollow rammed his chest into my head, causing my vision to go blurry. Not good. I was out of healing spells for the day – one more hit like that and I'm toast, assuming the acid doesn't get me first.

I tried to ram my knee into its knee, and instead got a glancing blow against its leg. Tried another punch at its chest – and discovered that Hollows apparently have bone structure, because I felt _something_ shatter. I would normally say that I got a critical hit, but critical hits don't work on Undead. Wait, did Hollows even follow D&amp;D rules? Crud, I should have tried to Sneak Attack it anyway.

With a whine, the Hollow kneeled over – to the side, fortunately for my remaining hit points. It hit the side of the cage and dissolved into a mist of purple particles. Great. Now I needed to find some water to wash any remaining acid off me and my Soulmelds.

Ungart looked up from the scroll he was reading when I walked in, taking in my dishevelled appearance and Soulmelds. "Dabble in meldshaping, do you?" He asked, looking back down at his papyrus.

"Your Hollow got loose." I said, quite nervous. Ungart could almost certainly flatten me if I made him mad, so hopefully he thought I was scared of him generally. Which I was.

It occurred to me that the scene mirrored a teen trying to tell their dad they'd broken a vase. Of course, an undead abomination was far from my idea of a father figure.

"You recaptured it, of course." While it sounded like a question, Ungart's response really wasn't.

"It had acid claws!" I protested quite weakly.

"And I was close to figuring out how the thing absorbed the power of other spirits. It was _very_ valuable to me." I blanched, not just because my 'boss' was unhappy with me, but a Lich that could eat souls for power? Class A disaster, right there.

Ungart was silent for a minute, but I didn't dare to move. Eventually he said "_I'm_ not going to heal you."

I left so fast I swear I left a Loony Tunes style smoke image.


	8. Time skip

Being near Ungart for a day was really stressful. Trapped with him for two weeks shaved years off my life, I'm sure.

I needed the anti-location enchantments on the building to remain hidden from the D.I.D. But that meant being stuck with a Lich who thought I would jump at his every word, and had more than enough magic on tap to kill me if I annoyed him too much.

There were lots of little things he did. Things like forgetting to feed me. I don't know if he just forgot (I mean it's not like he eats anything) or if he wanted me to lose weight or something. Just _asking_ him for food never occurred to me: I spent no time in his presence that could be avoided.

Now, this wasn't an actual _problem_, as it happens. Achieving 5th level had unlocked the "Sustenance" ability from my Vow of Poverty, which meant I had the privilege of being spoon-fed by the Forces of Good. Every morning my mouth tasted of sandwiches, and each night it tasted of fruit; the end result being I was never really hungry or thirsty.

Good thing too – the undead abomination kept a tight schedule. If I wasn't sleeping (and he only ever let me have 8 hours of sleep exactly), I was doing whatever menial task needed to keep his attention away from me. Fortunately he had to take an hour each morning to read his spellbook, so that was when I prayed for my divine spells.

Oh, didn't I mention? Yeah, the 'healer' level I took back at 2nd level was actually a level in (Cloistered) Cleric. So if I wanted my small allotment of spells to be replenished I needed to spend an hour praying. Essentially I spent 60 minutes each day going:

_Dear God,_

_Please give me magic. Please don't let the Lich kill me. Or the police._

_Please let me find my way back home._

Other, more immediate problems included the fact that I _still_ didn't know enough of this game for comfort. I had managed to close the gap a little, though. You see, Ungart would send me into town to buy various items for his research. That was surprisingly stressful, considering that if the authorities found me I'd be hunted down. I was using the Hide skill like it was going out of fashion.

Anyway, after getting a feel for the process I started finding lost of little time-savers. Stuff like knowing in advance the stores to browse, tipping the guy at the counter to hurry up, that kind of thing. The extra time got spent in the local used bookshop to find old D&amp;D books. Ugh. The way my life was on the line, it felt like I was reading textbooks rather than game manuals.

Anyway, with one solitary skill rank in Autohypnosis I could perfectly memorise the whole rulebook if the store guy didn't catch me reading without paying – and considering my Hide modifier, that wasn't really a problem. I would pay for them, but, you know… Vow of Poverty and all that. I did leave the poor guy any spare change I had, though.

But if it wasn't the police possibly killing me while I was away, it was Ugnart possibly killing me at 'home'. He didn't send me to check on his other 'projects', (probably didn't trust me not to break them) but he did give me all the menial and dangerous tasks. Like cleaning out the undead that kept rising in the basement. Mostly rodent skeletons, but I was _really_ unsettled by the human corpse that attacked me on the second week.

Basically I was being sent on micro-quests. The massive level-up splurge I had to begin with ended when I hit level 5, so despite two solid weeks of effectively constant questing I still didn't hit level 6. Two very major reasons for this: as I was Spellwarped, I had a 'level adjustment' of 3. That meant in order to level up, I needed enough XP to reach the level 3 higher than would normally be needed to level up. That is, I was effectively trying to hit level 9 instead of level 6.

Really, in light of that, hitting level 5 within 3 days was amazing.

The second reason was the drawback to my Fire Bloodline. Effectively, I needed to take levels 6 and 12 twice. So while I actually did manage to 'level up' doing micro-quests, that level up got sucked up by my bloodline and I needed to gain 8,000 XP _again_. Earning that in bundles of 50 XP sucked.

Either I had a lenient DM or said DM wanted me to hurry up, but I felt guilty about getting 50 XP for cleaning rooms. Or maybe it was the martial arts katas I performed in what little spare time I had. Real-world rules say you get better at what you practice, right?

So I guess you're wondering why this little time-skip ended after two weeks. Well, that was the day I saw knife-guy and ice-lady again…

I was on another one of Ungart's shopping trips. He needed spell components, so I ended up shopping at this really huge warehouse trying to find them. If they have Bunnings near where you live, kind of like that: shelves piled high to the ceiling with all kinds of random stuff.

So here I am halfway down an aisle, checking off a shopping list and wondering where I'm going to get bat guano, when I bumped into someone coming the other way. We both apologised on reflex and actually looked at each other. Crud. It was ice-lady.

Ice-lady frowned at me before turning back to the shelves. "What on earth are you doing here, girl?" She asked quite snottily, but without any heat in her voice.

Huh. That wasn't the response I was expecting.

"Hey! What are _you_ doing here?" Further up the aisle was knife-guy, who _was_ having the response I expected: looking murderous and drawing a knife. Crud.

Roll initiative.

Ice-lady's head tilted to one side, looking puzzled. "Ten, what _are_ you doing?"

Knife-guy (who was apparently called Ten) blinked at his partner. He stepped forward, frowned, and stepped back again.

Seeing as how nothing violent had happened so far, I raised my hands. "Listen, I don't want any trouble - "

Ten pulled a scroll out from the sleeves of his long shirt. With a barked word that I didn't recognise, the text on the scroll disappeared. I felt weird, like I was being smothered in something I couldn't see.

Next to me Ice-lady blinked, before her face hardened. Reaching into a pocket in her jacket, she pulled out a small stick that quickly expanded out into a full-sized quarterstaff. She stepped around me, and Ten stepped up to me. I was flanked.

Um. Um. What had just happened?

Ten leered at me, holding his knife in a way that was both casual and yet very threatening. "Anti-magic's a beach, isn't it?"

Okay, that wasn't actually what he said, but I want to be able to tell this story to children at some point.

Anyway, if this was an _Antimagic_ _Field_, then Ice-lady's reaction made more sense – she'd failed the saving throw against my calming aura, and then had her normal reaction when the Antimagic suppressed it. This was bad. My Exalted Armour wouldn't work in here.

Knife-guy took a swipe at me with his knife. I dodged. He grunted and swung again. I dodged again.

Ha!

Then Ice-lady smashed me in the back with her staff. Whelp. That hurt surprisingly much. I guess just tanking hits just wasn't going to work out for me.

Biting my lower lip, I Flurried against Ten – hit, hit! In the jaw, then in his arm when he blocked me! I was doing way better than I feared!

Ten's face was displaying quite clearly that this was not how he had expected this fight to go. He swung again – this time, one of his swings hit me. I promptly took a huge slash across my chest.

Adding insult to injury, Ice-lady whacked me on the back of the head. My vision was swimming, my chest was throbbing with pain, and I was seriously considering ditching yet another fight. Trouble was, this was actually the best possible setup for me: Ten was using his friend as a flanking buddy, and not, you know, a _spellcaster_. I really didn't want her to move outside the _Antimagic Field_.

Another Flurry – another two hits! Two really solid hits! Ten grunted again and toppled to the ground, down for the count. Due to the way D&amp;D's combat system worked, there was absolutely no chance that he was seriously hurt – all the damage I had done was nonleathal, as my vows required.

Ice-lady swore explosively. She raised her quarterstaff as if to strike me again, but I turned to face her, and she thought better of it. Instead, she quickly but carefully backed away from me, her guard up to block any attack I might try.

Not expecting this, I hesitated; and when she reached the edge of the Antimagic she clenched her fist, spat a word and vanished.

Great. Now what do I do with Ten? Take him back to Ungart? No way. I got the feeling that I was seriously skirting the edges of his patience as-is – someone who had actually abandoned him wouldn't get off as lightly as me.

Grabbing some rope from one of the nearby shelves, I tied him as securely as I safely could. Even if the D.I.D. found him, well, I'd never seen him cast a spell. (Using the scroll didn't count, anyone with proper skill ranks could do that).

Biting my lip, I activated Hide and Move Silently and crept out the service doors.

I was disappointed later on when I checked my character sheet and didn't find "Level Up" anywhere on it.


End file.
